Matt Schlapp

Well, it took thirty-five days and cost about six billion dollars, and incalculable personal suffering, but the Trump Shutdown is now over (temporarily). To say that Donald Trump caved is putting it mildly. He folded like a counterfeit three dollar bill under pressure from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (who he calls “Nancy”). And true to form, he emerged from the White House to declare victory in an impotent display of pathetic groveling and forced bluster.

During Trump’s concession speech he revealed another repulsive side of himself as he admitted that the purpose of his wall is to hurt already suffering refugees by killing any “glimmer of hope” they might have for safety and freedom. And on Saturday morning he followed that up with a Twitter tantrum that was rife with callousness and delusion. This tweetstorm featured one posting that stood out as being a pretty darn good argument against the vanity wall that Trump has been so obsessed with:

We have turned away, at great expense, two major Caravans, but a big one has now formed and is coming. At least 8000 people! If we had a powerful Wall, they wouldn’t even try to make the long and dangerous journey. Build the Wall and Crime will Fall!

So if we have already turned away two “caravans” of asylum seekers, then why do we need to spend billions of dollars on a wall that most experts say will be useless? The next caravan can be handled exactly the way the previous two were, without the expense or the pain associated with shutting down the government in an infantile rage.

Trump has actually admitted that our current ability to secure the border is perfectly adequate. There can be no credible argument that there is anything resembling an emergency at the border. So his yappy whining has no purpose other than to salve his ego. But he won’t let that stop him:

I wish people would read or listen to my words on the Border Wall. This was in no way a concession. It was taking care of millions of people who were getting badly hurt by the Shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done, it’s off to the races!

Let’s set aside Trump’s deranged assertion that he didn’t concede. The larger point he is making here is that he finally recognizes that the shutdown he was proud to impose was actually causing great harm and misery to millions of innocent people. But in the same sentence he callously threatens to do it all over again, unconcerned about inflicting more pain. He’s like the bully who uses his victim’s hand to slap his own face while taunting “Why do you keep shutting down yourself? Why do you keep shutting down yourself?”

This isn’t the first time that Trump’s argument for his wall has backfired on him. While his original campaign promise was that Mexico would pay for wall, he has failed utterly to bring that about. Instead, he has since insisted that the wall is being paid for by several different means in addition to Mexico, including: It would pay for itself, presumably by reducing unspecified expenditures on law enforcement; The new trade deal between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, which has nothing to do with wall funding as all the financial benefits of such a deal go to private industry; And the American taxpayer from whom he is currently demanding payment under threat of shutting down our government or declaring an unconstitutional national emergency.

So that’s four different payments for the same wall. How is that not a con game that would land anyone else in jail? Especially since the wall isn’t needed in the first place as Trump has now conceded on Twitter. And along with that concession, Trump has provided a couple of tweeted endorsements that are as phony as a con man’s paid shills. The first is by Fox News regular Matt Schlapp, who also happens to be married to Mercedes Schlapp, the White House Director of Strategic Communications. And the second is a video produced by the Daily Caller News Foundation, which is run by Fox News host Tucker Carlson. So these are hardly independent affirmations of Trump’s wall fetish.

The more Trump talks and/or tweets, the less Democrats need to make the case against Trump’s wall. He’s doing a mighty fine job of that all by himself. And the last person who would be surprised by that is special counsel Robert Mueller, who has seen Trump’s public statements as some of the most incriminating pieces of evidence against him, particularly with regard to obstruction of justice. This is just how Trump operates. He is so consumed by his narcissism that he truly believes that everything he says is brilliant and furthers his objectives. By the time he finds out how wrong he is, it will be too late.

America’s right-wing has distinguished itself as a vocal opponent of the free press and the First Amendment. For many decades they have made reporters a convenient foil for their failures and an object of their hatred. And today they are obediently following Donald Trump’s lead in casting the media in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the American people.”

When Michelle Wolf performed a comedy routine at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday, the wrath of the right was triggered once again to malign her for going to far with her jokes. They were bitterly offended that she had the gall to call out Trump and his chief spokesperson, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, for repeatedly and brazenly lying to the public. Never mind that what Wolf said in jest on Saturday was nowhere near as offensive as what Trump says seriously every day. And his petty revenge rally held the same day as the WHCD provided several examples.

Among those outraged by Wolf was Matt Schlapp, TV talking head and the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which produces the annual Conservative Action Political Conference (CPAC). Schlapp, it should be noted, never bothered criticizing Trump for mocking a disabled reporter, or attacking Mika Brzezinski’s “bleeding face,” or grabbing women by the pussy, or any number of other atrocious remarks. But he couldn’t stop himself from complaining about Wolf’s completely valid criticism of Trump and Huckabee as liars. In an interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota (video below), Schlapp said that Wolf’s routine was beyond the pale, and that:

“We have big political disagreements in this country. And I thinbk it’s wrong for journalists to take that next step. And granted, she’s a comedian, but plenty of journalists do it as well – is they take the next step. Just present the facts. Let the American people decide if they think someone’s lying.

“Journalists shouldn’t be the ones to say that the President or his spokesperson is lying. Because what that does to fifty percent of the country is it makes them feel they are not credible to listen to.”

At risk of stating the obvious: Journalists should absolutely be the ones to say that the President or his spokesperson is lying. It is the express duty of reporters to present the facts at all times. And when any public official misrepresents or distorts the facts, they need to be corrected unambiguously. And it’s much more than just pointing out that a comment differs from reality. The honesty of our political representatives is a crucial part of democracy, and they shouldn’t be let off the hook when they lie.

Conservative journalists have never been shy about calling Democrats liars. They used the term when criticizing President Obama for saying about the Affordable Care Act that “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” They said Hillary Clinton lied about Benghazi. Trump himself accused Clinton (falsely) of lying under oath to the FBI. But suddenly it is now “beyond the pale” to point out Trump’s lies.

Perhaps the rightist snowflakes have to draw a line because of the unwieldy quantity of lies that Trump exudes. Admittedly, it is a huge burden to have to monitor his unrelenting mendacity. But it has to be done, and journalists are exactly the right people to do it. They have the facts at their disposable and a platform for setting the record straight. Which is why Trump and shills like Schlapp hate the press so much.

Prominent conservative Matt Schlapp says that journalists should not say when the President/spokespeople are lying, and that they should leave it up to the American people to decide pic.twitter.com/tD2xuSacuH

In the hours following special counsel Robert Mueller’s latest set of indictments, there has been flurry of frantic activity over at Fox News. The desperation of Donald Trump’s phalanx of sycophants rushing to his defense is thick enough to slice with a scimitar. When they aren’t celebrating Trump’s imaginary vindication, they are insisting that the charges are meaningless. To these bipolar shills Mueller has either produced a profound success or a pitiful failure. Or, of course, it was all Obama’s fault.

Case in point: On Special Report, the afternoon Fox program that is cited as its flagship “news” hour, they hosted a hard-boiled Trump supporter who demonstrated the absurdity of wingnut media. Matt Schlapp is the chairman of the American Conservative Union and is married to Mercedes Schlapp, the White House Director of Strategic Communications. In a fit of pique that threatened to burst a blood vessel, Schlapp offered a unique simile to illustrate his opinion of the Mueller indictments (video below):

“This is rather absurd. This is like Rocky and Bullwinkle kind of stuff. When I think of Russian collusion in our elections I am offended. I think it’s repulsive. Is this what it was? It was thirteen guys having some rallies?”

Boris and Natasha must be laughing their cartoon asses off. Schlapp’s attempt to trivialize these charges is an anguished plea for help. His first blatant cognitive lapse was to mistake that the thirteen indictments means there were only thirteen participants in the Russian operation. Rest assured that the White House, despite their outer dismissals, is not amused. These are serious violations of the law and they imply further legal jeopardy for the President and his crime family.

But never mind that. Reality is fungible to the goons who make up the Trump Defense League. This outburst by Schlapp is typical of the imprimatur that Fox News wants so badly to stamp on this affair. That’s why he goes unchallenged by guest host Mike Emanuel. Schlapp’s main point that the whole Russian espionage campaign was a silly plot devised by a small band of losers is a lie that is explicitly addressed in the indictment which states that hundreds of people were involved with an annual budget of millions of dollars:

“The ORGANIZATION employed hundreds of individuals for its online operations, ranging from creators of fictitious personas to technical and administrative support. The ORGANIZATION’s annual budget totaled the equivalent of millions of U.S. dollars.”

No one on Fox News corrected this material falsehood. Which explains why Fox News viewers are so clueless about the facts of pretty much any topic that is covered by Fox. The network deliberately misinforms their audience and leaves them to wallow in ignorance.

Schlapp continued with his disinformation rant by shifting the blame to the right’s favorite black president/villain saying that “Obama should have stopped it.” And he concluded by saying that undermining the foundation of our nation’s democracy “is not worth a year of the country’s time,” and that the charges are “ridiculous and not true.” He is so adamant in his arguments that you have to wonder if he is now serving as the defense counsel for the indicted Russians?

If so, Schlapp would have to take a backseat to Trump, who has been litigating the innocence of Putin’s spies for more than a year now. However, these indictments prove that Russian meddling in the 2016 election was not, as Trump whines, a hoax, or a witch hunt, or fake news. It is a cyberwar, and any complicity on the part of any American is treason.

.@mschlapp on Mueller indictment: "This is not worth a year of the country's time over everything else that we have to deal with…these charges of Russian collusion, it's clearly been ridiculous and not true." #SpecialReportpic.twitter.com/MZz1gvs8mH